When the Day Breaks

in Film | December 1st, 2009

This short ani­mat­ed film, When the Day Breaks, comes to us via The Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da, which appears on our list of places to watch free movies online. (Scroll to the bot­tom of the page.) In this film direct­ed by Wendy Til­by and Aman­da For­bis, “Ruby the pig seeks affir­ma­tion in the city around her after wit­ness­ing the acci­den­tal death of a stranger… and finds it in sur­pris­ing places. With deft humour and fine­ly ren­dered detail, When the Day Breaks illu­mi­nates the links that con­nect our urban lives, while evok­ing the promise and fragili­ty of a new day.” Thanks Vic­to­ria for this nine min­utes of good­ness!

T.S. Eliot Reads The Waste Land

in Literature, Poetry | November 26th, 2009

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem, The Waste Land, is often con­sid­ered one of the great poems of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Above, you can lis­ten to Eliot him­self read­ing his mod­ernist mas­ter­piece (text here). And, if you want more, how about Eliot read­ing The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, anoth­er major work, against the back­drop of Por­tishead? Sac­ri­lege, I know.

You can find both poems in our exten­sive Free Audio Book col­lec­tion, which con­tains hun­dreds of clas­sic works. Fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and poet­ry. It’s all there, and all free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce Read­ing from Finnegans Wake

Tchaikovsky’s Voice Cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1899)

Get $3 in MP3s from Amazon.com

in Music | November 24th, 2009

A quick free­bie men­tion: Amazon.com is cur­rent­ly giv­ing away $3 worth of MP3’s until Novem­ber 30th. That amounts essen­tial­ly to three free songs. Just click to this page, fol­low a few easy steps (includ­ing using the code code MP34FREE), and you’ll be on your way.

via Life­hack­er

The Big NASA Image Archive

in Astronomy, Science | November 23rd, 2009

The Inter­net Archive has done it again. The San Fran­cis­co non-prof­it has teamed up with NASA to give you access to NASA’s image, video, and audio col­lec­tions. The con­tent is all avail­able in one sin­gle, search­able resource, which makes it the largest col­lec­tion of NASA’s media on the web. When you enter NasaImages.org, you’ll see that the media is nice­ly divid­ed into the fol­low­ing sec­tions. Uni­verse, Solar Sys­tem, Earth, Aero­nau­tics, and Astro­nauts. Now please help get the word out.

100 Great, Free Movies Online

in Film | November 21st, 2009

Two weeks ago, we pre­sent­ed a list of 35 sites where you can watch free movies online. Now, we’ve tak­en the next step and added 100 high-qual­i­ty films to our list. Some films are con­tem­po­rary, but many are clas­sics cre­at­ed by leg­endary direc­tors, actors & actress­es. And they’re fre­quent­ly made avail­able by the great Inter­net Archive. (Note: you can usu­al­ly stream or down­load their films. It’s your choice.) Below I have list­ed 15 films, but you can find the com­plete list here. Final­ly, if you want to for­ward a short link to friends, here’s one that you can use: http://bit.ly/freeonlinemovies

• Beat the Dev­il (1953) Direct­ed by John Hus­ton, with Humphrey Bog­a­rt and Peter Lorre.
• Demen­tia 13 (1963) A hor­ror film that was one of Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la’s ear­ly main­stream efforts.
• His Girl Fri­day (1940) Direct­ed by Howard Hawks. A clas­sic com­e­dy with Cary Grant.
• Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton (1939) Direct­ed by Frank Capra, with Jim­my Stew­art.
• My Best Friend’s Birth­day (1987) Direct­ed by Quentin Taran­ti­no.
• Pan­ic in the Streets (1950) A noir clas­sic direct­ed by Elia Kazan, with Jack Palance.
• Rashomon (1950) By the great Japan­ese direc­tor Aki­ra Kuro­sawa.
• Scar­let Street (1945) Direct­ed by Fritz Lang with Edward G. Robin­son. A film noir great.
• Sita Sings the Blues (2008) New prize-win­ning ani­mat­ed film by Nina Paley.
• Super­Size Me (2004) Mor­gan Spur­lock­’s doc­u­men­tary on fast food in Amer­i­ca. Also watch here.
• Taxi Dri­ver (1976) Direct­ed by Mar­tin Scors­ese, with Robert DeNiro. (US view­ers only)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock, with James Stew­art and Doris Day.
• The Ter­ror (1963) With Jack Nichol­son and part­ly shot by Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la.
• Tri­umph of the Will (1935) The major Nazi pro­pa­gan­da work by Leni Riefen­stahl. With sub­ti­tles.
• The 39 Steps (1935) One of Alfred Hitch­cock­’s first hits.
• Un Chien Andalou (1929) Sal­vador Dali and Louis Bunuel’s short, silent sur­re­al­ist film.

Get the full list of 100 free online movies here. And remem­ber to fol­low us on Twit­ter and Face­book.

Free, Rare, Early Shakespeare Digital Archive

in Literature | November 19th, 2009

New­ly launched: The Shake­speare Quar­tos Archive is a new dig­i­tal col­lec­tion that fea­tures pre-1642 edi­tions of William Shake­speare’s plays. Here, for exam­ple, you will find rare ear­ly edi­tions of Ham­let, includ­ing all 32 exist­ing quar­to copies of the play in one place. An online first. Thanks Jere­my for the tip…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pla­gia­rism Soft­ware Dis­cov­ers New Shake­speare Play

Free Shake­speare on the iPhone

Goethe and Shake­speare on Google

What Did Shake­speare Real­ly Look Like

Einstein’s Relativity: An Animated New Yorker Cartoon

in Comedy | November 18th, 2009

In the past cou­ple of years, The New York­er has rolled out a series of ani­mat­ed car­toons, which puts in motion its famous car­toons. They can be watched iTunes, YouTube or right on the web.

Interviews with Schoenberg and Bartók

in Music | November 17th, 2009

We gave you Tchaikovsky’s Voice Cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1899) and James Joyce Read­ing from Finnegans Wake. And now, thanks to Robert, we let you lis­ten in on inter­views with two oth­er great com­posers — Arnold Schoen­berg (1874–1951) and Béla Bartók (1881–1945) record­ed in 1944.

Nabokov’s Last

in Books, Literature | November 16th, 2009

Vladimir Nabokov want­ed his last unfin­ished nov­el destroyed (learn more about it here). But, 32 years after his death, the book is being pub­lished. You can buy The Orig­i­nal of Lau­ra start­ing Tues­day. Mean­while, you can also read through a few excerpts thanks to the Times Online.

Free Movies Online: Now Expanded with Many Classics

in Film | November 11th, 2009

Two weeks ago, I post­ed a col­lec­tion of 20 sites where you can watch free movies online. Thanks to your help, the page now fea­tures 30 Places to Watch Free Movies Online, and I hope to keep it grow­ing. Below, I have fea­tured five of the new addi­tions, which includes many impor­tant clas­sics. Please feel free to share the full col­lec­tion with friends, and keep send­ing your sug­ges­tions my way:

Inter­net Archive — Fea­ture Films: When you’re look­ing for free movies online, the Inter­net Archive should be your first stop. It fea­tures large col­lec­tions of come­dies, film noir and sci-fi/hor­ror flix. You will also find some for­eign films here, along with impor­tant clas­sic films, includ­ing Elia Kazan’s Pan­ic in the Streets, John Hus­ton’s Beat the Dev­il, Fritz Lang’s Scar­let Street, Howard Hawks’ His Girl Fri­day, Sergei Eisen­stein’s Bat­tle­ship Potemkin and The Kid with Char­lie Chap­lin. You can access the Archive’s full movie library here.

Babel­gum Films: Babelgum’s goal is to act as an inter­na­tion­al ‘glue’, bring­ing a huge range of pro­fes­sion­al and semi-pro­fes­sion­al films to a glob­al audi­ence – like a mod­ern-day Tow­er of Babel. They’re also mak­ing an effort to get their con­tent to smart­phones. They have an iPhone app now and apps for oth­er phones on the hori­zon. Get more detail on the mobile apps here.

FMO: FreeMoviesOn­line fea­tures a large selec­tion of pub­lic domain films. Here, you’ll find films fea­tur­ing John Wayne (Par­adise Canyon, Humphrey Bog­a­rt (Beat the Dev­il), Cary Grant (The Amaz­ing Quest of Ernest Bliss), Fred Astaire (Roy­al Wed­ding), Hitch­cock­’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, and many oth­ers.

Fan­cast: This site fea­tures a long list of free movies. Some notable films include Lau­rence Olivi­er and Kirk Dou­glas in Spar­ta­cus, John­ny Depp in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Cary Grant and Audrey Hep­burn in Cha­rade, Gary Coop­er in The Pride of the Yan­kees, Robert DeNiro in Ronin, and Bil­ly Wilder’s The Pri­vate Life of Sher­lock Holmes. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I think this site restricts films to an Amer­i­can audi­ence. But please let me know if I am wrong about that.

Google Video: For some time now, major clas­sics have appeared on Google Video. Take for exam­ple: the 1922 Ger­man silent film Nos­fer­atu, The Phan­tom of the Opera (1925), Sergei Eisen­stein’s 1918 film Alexan­der Nevsky, Howard Hugh­es’ The Out­law (1943), Aki­ra Kuro­sawa’s Rashomon (1950), Night of the Liv­ing Dead (1968), 1984 (based on the Orwell nov­el) and three films by the great Frank Capra — It Hap­pened One Night (with Clark Gable), It’s a Won­der­ful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton (both with Jim­my Stew­art).

Indie Movies Online: Just as it sounds. A good place to watch full-fledged indie films on the web.  Right now, you can find Peter Greenaway’s film, Rem­brandt’s J’ac­cuse and The Future We Will Cre­ate — Inside the World of TED. The site seems to be avail­able in the US, UK, Cana­da and Aus­tralia, but per­haps also beyond.

For many more free films, please vis­it 30 Places to Watch Free Movies Online